About 8,000 people lost their jobs in Croatia in February, bringing the total number of the unemployed to 317,625, the highest number in nearly five years, according to figures released by the National Employment Office (HZZ) on Wednesday.
Unemployment has been on the rise since early 2009 when the recession began, which forced companies to cut costs and lay off workers.
Compared with January 2010, when 18,000 people lost their jobs, the unemployment growth trend slowed down a little, as expected.
Five macroeconomists interviewed by Hina have predicted that between 5,500 and 11,500 workers were laid off in February, or 9,500 on average.
Since the recession is having a delayed effect on the domestic labour market, I presume its impact will continue to be felt in March as well, but it should be weaker than at the beginning of the year, said Zdeslav Santic, chief economist at Splitska Banka.
HZZ figures showed that the number of the unemployed in February rose by 2.6 per cent from the previous month. The number of registered vacancies increased by 84 per cent to 11,137, while the number of first-time job-seekers went up by 2 per cent to 50,303.
